A broad swath of activists—from union leaders, to democratic socialists, and tenant advocates—will descend upon Sacramento this morning to demand swift action on the Costa Hawkins Act, a longstanding restriction on rent control. Assembly Bill 1506, introduced last year by Assemblymember Richard Bloom (D – Santa Monica), failed to pass through committee after Bloom faced overwhelming opposition from homeowners and real estate groups.
The bill is co-sponsored by Assemblymembers Rob Bonta (D – Oakland) and David Chiu (D – SF), as well as State Senator Ben Allen (D – Redondo Beach), and consists of a single sentence: to repeal the Costa-Hawkins Rental Act of 1995.
Originally signed into law by Republican Governor Pete Wilson, Assembly Bill 1164 by then-Assemblymembers Bill Costa and Phil Hawkins contained two basic provisions: (1) prohibiting “vacancy control,” or extending limits on rent increases to new tenants, and (2) prohibiting local rent control ordinances from applying to new construction and single-family dwellings. In 2002, the bill was amended to close a loophole that had enabled exemptions for condo conversions.
The Housing Now campaign, mobilized in part by the SEIU Local 1021, is bringing rent control advocates to testify before the Assembly’s Housing and Community Development Committee, which is chaired by Assemblymember Chiu. According to Chiu’s office, the meeting is scheduled as an informational hearing on “The Plight of Renters in the Housing Affordability Crisis.” This comes on the heels of a massive phone-banking campaign by the Democratic Socialists of America to call members of the State Assembly in support of AB 1506.
Alex Lantsberg, a landlord in the Bayview District with the San Francisco Property Owners for Reasonable Controls (SPORC), described the bill as “long overdue,” adding that San Francisco’s rent stabilization law caused him no undue burden. “The allowable increases are adequate and I think we've only raised rent twice,” he said via email. “I personally benefited from rent control as a tenant before the turn of the century, but I've owned my place for nearly 20 years. Nevertheless, rent control has provided indirect benefits by helping to enable and nurture so much of the San Francisco that I love.”
Meanwhile, the Chinese-American Bay Area Homeowners Network (BAHN) is organizing against the bill. BAHN has argued AB 1506 “will kill rental housing for most tenants. The elderly and families with children would be displaced by single high-income renters. The bill will deter construction in rental housing at exactly the wrong time. It will allow rent control in new developments, further increasing rental prices and exacerbating the housing shortage.”
Last month, Bloom and Chiu successfully passed AB 1505, known as the “Palmer fix,” which enables local jurisdictions to set clear requirements for Below-Market Rate dwelling units in market-rate housing projects.
Though the California state legislature remains in recess, the committee’s informational hearing may effectively sustain momentum for the bill to pass in 2018. Failing that, other coalitions have vowed to bring a full repeal directly to voters in a statewide referendum.
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